The present disclosure relates to a thermal-transfer laminate film, a thermal-transfer sheet, and an image forming apparatus including the thermal-transfer laminate film and the thermal-transfer sheet.
From the past, for image protection, a thermal-transfer image protection layer formed of a thermoplastic resin has been laminated on an image formed on a printing paper, that is, an image formed by, for example, a sublimation-type thermal-transfer method that uses a sublimation dye or a thermal diffusion dye.
As a lamination method of a thermal-transfer image protection layer, a method of performing thermocompression bonding on an ink image using a heating roller is known. There is also known a method of structuring an image laminate film including a base film and a thermal-transfer image protection layer that is formed of a thermoplastic resin and formed on the base film and transferring only the heated part of the thermal-transfer image protection layer onto an image using a thermal head or the like, that is, a method that uses a thermal-transfer laminate film (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Sho 58-147390, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Sho 60-23096, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Sho 60-204397).
By laminating the thermal-transfer image protection layer on a formed image as described above, an improvement of an image preservation stability can be expected, for example. In addition, a method of forming a desired surface shape by an image protection layer is proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-292041 proposes an ultra-shiny thermal-transfer laminate film capable of realizing a shinier image than in the related art by enhancing Surface smoothness.
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-202598 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Document 5) proposes a method of forming an image that contains a pearlescent pigment and has an iris color and a metallic luster. Specifically, Patent Document 5 proposes a thermal-transfer sheet in which a base sheet is laminated on a back surface layer, a first colorant including a pigment or a dye and a release layer are laminated sequentially on a surface of the base sheet, and a second colorant including a pearlescent pigment is laminated on a surface of the release layer. In Patent Document 5, however, it is necessary to separately provide, in forming a protection layer for protecting a formed image in a method of forming an image using a thermal-transfer sheet and an intermediate thermal-transfer sheet, a second colorant layer including a pearlescent pigment and the protection layer for protecting an image.